Pages

March 30, 2010

Could Your Marriage Survive Without A TV?

My wife and I occasionally enjoy watching the show 19 Kids and Counting which chronicles the lives of the Duggar family, a conservative Christian family that currently has nineteen children. It is extremely entertaining, is often a conversation starter, and in general is nice, wholesome, switch from the usual TV trash we as Americans are used to watching.

Last week they aired a question and answer episode where viewers got to submit questions to the family and the family got to respond. One of the questions was about whether or not the Duggars ever watched TV. Jim Bob (the dad) explained that when he and his wife first got married, a family friend challenged them to live their first year of marriage without a television. After the first year, they got a TV and were disappointed with how often they would waste their evenings away with watching countless hours of TV. Because of that, they decided to go back to the way things were and get rid of TV. (I'm not entirely sure, but I still think they have a TV to occasionally watch movies, but they definitely don't have cable.)

Whether you think that is insane or not, the idea is very intriguing to me. It got me thinking, How would my marriage change if we didn't have a TV? My wife and I would definitely talk more, and we'd probably play a lot more games with each other. In short, I think we'd be a lot more focused on each other than on the make believe world we get wrapped up in.

What do you think? Could you commit to no TV (or no video games or internet or whatever is your "entertainment time") for a certain amount of time for the sake of your marriage? What do you think about the advice not to have television during the first year of marriage?

Heh, this is fun... I spent most of my life without cable TV (sometimes my grandparents would try to sign us up with cable, because they thought it'd be good and educational, but my mum and dad always resisted it). Presently I don't even have a TV -- well, it's not plugged in, and it's not in a convenient spot.

My fiancée has me beat though -- she grew up without a TV at all for most of her life. Neither of us have Luddite parents; I think they just didn't like the TV very much and considered it an intrusion.

So it's quite weird to recall that other people do watch TV. I honestly don't know when I'd have the time!!!